After he had said this, he went on to tell them, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up." His disciples replied, "Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better." Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep. So then he told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him." (John 11:11-15)
Why is Jesus going to help Lazarus?
At the time he said this, Jesus was in Bethany, where he had heard from two of his followers (Mary and Martha) that their brother Lazarus was sick.How do we know that Martha and Mary were followers of Jesus?
In John 11:28, Martha told her sister: "The teacher is here and is asking for you." A person who qualifies someone as their teacher is a student.
According to John 11:18, Bethany was about two miles away (in Greek, fifteen stadia, which is about three kilometers) from where Jesus was.
Jesus was told that Lazarus was sick, but Jesus knew that Lazarus' body had died. When Jesus said at first that Lazarus had fallen asleep, his disciples did not initially understand what Jesus meant. So Jesus had to clarify by saying, "Lazarus is dead."
How did Jesus know Lazarus was dead?
We can tell from these verses that no one around him knew this because Jesus' disciples had understood "asleep" to mean Lazarus was sleeping and not dead. This is confirmed:His disciples replied, "Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better." Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep. (John 11:12-13)Therefore, we know that Jesus had information about Lazarus that no one else around him had. How did he know that?
The physical body is a vessel of the living being. We are each spirit-persons temporarily operating a physical body. Just as one sits down in a car and drives the car for a while, the self (spirit-person) sits in a body and drives it for a while.
Then at some point, the self must leave. This is the time of death. When the self leaves, the physical body is lifeless and begins to decompose.
Is there proof the self leaves the body at death?
Clinical death research has established that the self will rise up over the body at the time of death and look down upon it. Then the self will travel to locations where their loved ones are. At that time, the self will attempt to say goodbye. Most relatives will not realize this, as we cannot see spirit with the physical eyes.However, in some cases, relatives have reported that they felt the presence of the person whose body had died. Some of these were clinical death reports where the dead body was revived and the living being returned to the body to report their death experience, including going to visit the relative who also experienced a sensation of the "dying" person's presence at the same time the revived person reported going to the relative for the visit.
Unlike those around him, Jesus had spiritual vision. He could see that his student Lazarus' body was dead, likely because Lazarus came to see Jesus after he left his body. In other words, a devoted student will follow his teacher in life and in death.
The lesson here is that the direction of a person's life, while they are occupying a physical body, propels them to their next destination. Their attachments in the world will continue. It is not as if a person is attached to someone while they are in the body, and as soon as they die, that attachment ceases.
This is important to consider because the attachments we make in the physical world will continue after the death of our body, and those attachments will often determine our destination after the death of this body.
What about family attachments?
The spirit-persons who come together as families in the physical world typically stay together from lifetime to lifetime, albeit in different relationships.This is why family members are so familiar to us. We each have a soul group and tend to interact with this group as family members or close friends from lifetime to lifetime.
Our mother of this life might be our brother of the next. Or our older sister of this life might be our aunt of another lifetime. Or we might even marry our former brother, sister or even mother or daughter in our next lifetime, depending upon who dies first and how strong our relationships are. In other words, families and close friends tend to transmigrate together. And they work together to help each other learn.
Yes, this is a nice thing. But becoming too attached to our physical family also comes with some risks. Remaining within our family's consciousness can sometimes keep us from seeking new information and expanding our learning experiences. This especially applies to spiritual knowledge.
We are here in this world to learn. The lessons and knowledge we are presented in this world can help us break out of our current consciousness and encourage us to have a change of heart.
This is why Jesus told a prospective student:
"Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God." (Luke 9:60)
Didn't Jesus promote family attachments?
Some teachers claim that Jesus was all about family values. They teach that the family is all-important. But did Jesus teach this?Actually, Jesus did not teach this. In addition to the Luke 9:60 verse above, Jesus stated clearly that the physical family was not as important as our spiritual family:
"For I have come to turn " 'a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—a man's enemies will be the members of his own household.' " (Matthew 10:35-36)Someone told him, "Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you." He replied to him, "Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?" Pointing to his disciples, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother." (Matthew 12:47-50)
This latter statement confirms that Jesus taught that we have a greater family - a spiritual family. Each of God's children is our family member. And those who seek to please God are especially close family members to a person who is also seeking this.
If we follow Jesus' teachings sincerely, we can re-develop our natural love and attachment to God, This will give us the ability to transcend the physical relationships of this world, and rejoin our spiritual family. We can return to our natural condition as one of God's loving servants within our real family of the spiritual world.
This is what Jesus was trying to teach his followers. He wanted them to become attached to God.
Becoming attached to relationships with those who want to remain in the physical world - a place of self-centeredness, suffering, and pain along with temporary glimpses of pleasure - can cement our repeated return to the physical world.
Physical attachments guarantee that we will keep seeking pleasure where there is none. They guarantee that we will remain in the illusion - body after body - that we are each of these physical bodies, while we ignore our real spiritual identity.
This in turn can discourage our redeveloping our relationship with our Best Friend and Supreme Family Member, God.
Did Jesus teach the transmigration of the soul?
We know that Jesus taught his disciples about this transmigration of the spiritual living being. This is why, when they saw a man crippled from birth, his disciples asked Jesus:"Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" (John 9:2)The only way the man's sins could have caused his being crippled is if he had a former life.
"Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life. As long as it is day, we must do the work of Him who sent me.” (John 9:3)Jesus' answer indicates that the man's actions in his previous life could have caused his being crippled - though it actually had another purpose.
Jesus knew that Lazarus had left his body because he had spiritual vision. And he wanted those around him to become free from their ignorance of God and their false bodily identification. This is why Jesus said: "for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe."
What does Jesus want them to believe? The physical world and our illusion that this is all there is - is quite strong. This is part of God's design to enable those of us who chose at some point in the past that we wanted to get away from God. So God created a world where we could pretend that we are these bodies, and this physical world is all there is, so we could ignore God's existence.
The Supreme Being created this world of illusion because we can't really get away from Him. He can go everywhere. He is unlimitedly expandable. He can expand and duplicate Himself without limit. Therefore, He is always with us, following us where ever we go. This is what a friend does. A real friend never abandons their friend, even if that person wants to get away. So the Supreme Being designed an illusory force that allows us to feel we are away from God.
Why do we forget our former lifetimes in other bodies?
Researchers who have studied the ability of children to remember a past life have found that children under the age of seven readily regress back to former lives. But after about age seven, their recall typically dwindles. Many children under the age of seven will remember their past lives readily.This was found in the research led by Dr. Ian Stevenson, a medical doctor and professor of research at the University of Virginia, Department of Psychiatric Medicine. Dr. Stevenson and associates also found that these past live histories could be scientifically verified. Dr. Stevenson and his associates conducted nearly 2,000 past life studies with children who recalled their previous lifetime.
They confirmed repeatedly that there was no way the child could have known these things otherwise.
Other peer-reviewed research has been conducted to confirm Dr. Stevenson's findings over the years. Some have used hypnosis. Scientists in this research have included Dr. Helen Wambach (1978), Dr. Morris Netheron (1978), Dr. Edit Fiore (1978), Dr. Bruce Goldberg (1982), Dr. Joel Whitton (1986), Dr. Brian Weiss (1988), Dr. Christopher Bache (1994), Dr. Winafred Lucas (1993), Dr. Marge Rieder (1995; 1999) along with others.
Consider the rationale of God's design that we forget our former lifetimes. Consider James Leininger, who at the age of 2-1/2 began to suddenly communicate knowledge of aviation he could not have otherwise known. He remembered being a fighter pilot in World War II, and remembered being shot down. He described the events of Lt. James McCready Huston's life in detail, only in a way that the pilot could. He also remembered being shot down.
This continued for over five years until James was eight. This period was very rough on James and his folks. He had nightmares and suffered from trauma. He was confused about who he was. He had a rough time in school.
At eight, James' memory of his former lifetime began to fade. Later, James was finally absorbed into his present life and was a healthy boy.
This memory of our past lives may fade differently for most of us, but for the most part, we all forget as children, as we become wrapped up in our current physical environment. This is God's design, which allows those of us who wanted to get away from God to identify with these bodies.
Is Jesus inviting us home?
Jesus is God's loving servant, sent by Him to bring those of us who want to, to return home to our relationship with the Supreme Being and leave behind this cycle of birth and death in the physical world. This means he had to jolt his students out of their comfort zone. The phrase "so that you may believe" clearly indicates Jesus' desire that his students trust what he was trying to teach them.The word "believe" here is translated from the Greek πιστεύω (pisteuō). This means, according to the lexicon, "to think to be true, to be persuaded of, to credit, place confidence in." Jesus wanted his students to have confidence in his teachings. He wanted them to trust what Jesus was telling them about God.
Jesus was telling them not just that the Supreme Being exists and they can believe he exists. Jesus was teaching his students that they could trust in God, and have a loving relationship with God. This is why his most important instruction was:
"'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment." (Matt. 22:37-38)
*Here is the translation of these verses according to the Lost Gospels of Jesus:
After saying this he continued, “Our friend Lazarus sleeps. I must go so that I may wake him from his sleep.” His disciples replied, saying, “Master, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.” While Jesus was speaking of the death of his body, they thought he spoke of his resting in sleep. Thus Jesus said to them plainly, “Lazarus has passed away. And I am glad for the sake of your trust that I wasn’t there – but let’s go to him now.” (John 11:11-15)
